When Waffles Attack (aka.. the longest post ever)

As you can probably tell, I am back from Paris and Brussels. I was a really fun trip but super tiring. Before I talk about it, I want to talk about yesterday, even though it wasn't that exciting.

Yesterday in class I had to do a presentation. I did mine on Fall Out Boy. It was all about their image and dynamic. I think it went pretty well. I am really excited because my professor is very happy with me right now. The other day I saw a video of Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter). The Hold Steady ( the band we went to see in concert, represented by my prof) was in the background. Later he said that they were his favorite band of the year. So I sent him and email with the link. Turns out he hadn't seen the video and was very excited about it. He showed his son and is now talking to the Sun and Daily Post (two big newspapers in the UK) about doing a story on it. So I might have gotten The Hold Steady a lot of new press. He was really grateful for the tip. Someone in the class was like Automatic A+. He said I got myself a job. haha.(I didn't really get a job, but it was nice to hear that he thought I did something cool). After class I went to Sainsberry and got some more food. I bought apricots (that aren't ripe.. they are sour.ew), cherries, and bananas. I'm trying to eat healthier. I got other random food too so I dont starve. Then I decided I need to do laundry. I put all my dirty clothes in my suitcase and wheeled it over to the laundry place. It cost me 6pounds to wash and dry! Ah. So much. But at least I have clean clothes now. My room even smells like laundry which is pretty cool. I also finalized the details for our Ireland trip. I am leaving on Thursday at 5pm and coming back on Sunday at 8am. The 5 of us are staying in this cute little bed and breakfast about a mile out of the city center. We wanted to be closer but the hostels and hotels were all full or had some strange requirement. I'm happy about everything.

I really need to take a shower, but our shower is like overflowing. It's really gross. I think I need to suck it up and go after this though because a shower would be good right about now.

Anyways, on to what you really want to read about- The Hold Steady, Paris, and Brussels.

The night before we left to Paris we went to see The Hold Steady and The Steers for class. It was an awesome field trip. We took a private bus to the venue. The tickets here are really different and cute, not like ticketmaster tickets. Of course, right when we walked in everyone headed straight for the bar. It was pretty funny. I got a coke and crisps because I was starving. The venue was about an hour away from home. The first band was called The Steers. They were really good. (I looked them up on myspace but they sounded way better live). I was bummed because they didnt have anything to buy or any cds. Their single comes out in September.

The Steers


Then The Hold Steady came on. At first I was kind of like eh..but they really got me into their set. It's so cool and funny to see these old looking guys rock out. The lead singer was such a nerd. It was so cute. The show was sold out and the crowd was super into it, which added to it. The crowd was mostly older folks, but it was fine. They gave a shout out to our class, which was kinda cool. We felt special. We felt even cooler when after their set them came and talked to us. It was funny. They were telling us, if you want to be in the music business, stay on the business side. Then they were telling us story about Johnny (our prof) and how he did a lot of cool stuff. He kinda denies it and says he doesn't remember. haha. Once we all got on the bus again, we were like story time! Johnny told us a lot of stories about Oasis and how he feels about Kings of Leon. He did handclaps in one of Oasis' #1 songs and got a check for 3k. haha Awesome. He's just like the coolest guy ever. I love it. This is seriously the best class I've ever had. I really really love it and am sad it's almost over. We didn't get home until 1am from our trip. I still had to pack and stuff. I went to bed around 2:30 and woke up at 4:45 for PARIS!

The Hold Steady (they don't look exciting in this picture, but they were. This is just to give you an idea of what they looked like. haha. Yay semi old dudes in bands!)



When I woke up packed all my stuff into my duffle. I wish I had a better bag. I might need to buy one (because I think I'll be coming home with more stuff than I came with..). Anyways, I met up with Lauren at 6 am and we started walking to the trainstop. From there we had to take a train, change trains, underground times two, and then find our gate. We got to the airport really early, but that was okay. We were afraid that security was going to be really bad because of all the bombings and the Glasgow incident. When we finally got on our plane, I fell asleep really quick. When I woke up, we had arrived. The flight was only about an hour. It was really quick. We walked off the plane and immediately just started cracking up. We realized we were in a foreign country and we knew nothing about the language. We looked at the signs and were just confused. It was pretty great. So we went through customs and learned how to say "Do you speak english?" and figured out Sortie meant exit. Once we got through customs, we had to try to figure out the train system. It was not as easy as it looked, but we eventually got the hang of it. We made it to the hostel. Lets just say it could have been worse. Here is a video tour. You have to tilt your head to the left to see it. Sorry if it makes you dizzy.



After we dropped off our stuff, we headed back to the metro to see Damien Rice. It was seriously the best concert ever. The venue was amazing. It was this big like Opera hall. I don't know if it was the acoustics or just the sound people, but everything was so clear and crisp. Nothing was harsh. I don't know. The sound was perfect. It was better than on his cds even. He was the most amazing performer. Lauren and I were both just speechless. I am so happy I was able to go. I felt like I was a part of something really special. Anthony said we had like the best set list ever so to have that a historic venue, was pretty cool. He spoke french most of the time, which was funny. He was kinda struggling, but it was cool. During his encore, he did Cheers Darlin, which is my favorite song if his. Damien did a little skit where he told the story about the song. Basically he went to a bar and talked to this girl. They hit it off really well and he really really liked her. They talked until really late, after all the busses were gone. They figured they needed to go home. I think the story goes that he offers to walk her home or something, and she says that her fiance is coming to pick her up. (Oo burn). She gives him three cigarettes and leaves. So he told all this in french and then at the end was like fucking bitch in english. It was really classic. haha. Then he sang the song. It was soooo awesome.. We couldn't believe it was him singing. We seriously thought he was lip-synching because it sounded that good (He obviously wasn't). It was so cute too to see the French kids sing in English with their accents. I loved it. We left very very content with our purchase. But our pictures turned out really badly. I did get some videos though. It's illegal to upload them though I think. If you want to see them, I can send them to you.



The next day we did so much touristy stuff it was crazy. We woke up late but it didn't matter because we were so productive. First we wandered to the Musse de Picasso. We stumbled along some random pretty buildings so we took pictures. We got to the museum but decided not to go in because of money and time. we pretty much did that all day, but the outsides of the buildings are so great anyways. Then we went to the centre de pompidou. This is such a cool building. It's way colorful and has these cool escalators on the outside. Around that area there were really good panini and crepe vendors too. Yum! We kept walking and eventually found a fake mac store. We thought they might have internet, so we went. We were wrong. (Eventually we did find an internet cafe, but it was horrible. It was so dusty and our allergies freaked out. The keyboards are also very different there which makes it hard to type). Then more pretty buildings and the river. Then NOTRE DAME! We laughed because we saw this restaurant called "Quasimoto". It was pretty funny. Notre Dame was really pretty and huge! I had no idea how big it was. We took a ton of pictures and wondered all the way around. Its really hard to get pictures of buildings here because everything is soo big. It's nuts. After that we went to the Bastille, which was not as exciting as I had hoped. The Bastille is like an important thing in history, but when we got there it was like a statue and roads. How disappointing.Then we tired to find Victor Hugo's home. We don't know if we did or not. We found a hotel and took pictures of it, but didn't think that was it. Later we found out he lived on the 2nd floor of a hotel, so maybe we did find it. We don't really know. We walked along these little streets and looked a the boutiques. They were cute but we didn't buy anything. On our way to the Louvre we saw a huge group of people so we figured we needed to get in on the action. It turns out it was Tony Parker and Eva Longoria's wedding! How cool! We couldn't really see anything which was sad. We took pictures of the building. We aited for a while and then decided to leave.

Center Georges Pompidou




Fake mac store


Notre Dame


Bastille


Evas wedding (I know you can't see anything, oh well. This is where it was)


So we headed over to the Lourve. It was sooooo huge. I had no idea. I was amazing. We took a ton of pictures and did a video. haha. We didn't go into the Lourve because we didn't have enough time to devote to it. I was satisfied just being there though. It was awesome.





After that we went to the gardens and got some yummy ice cream. We could see the Arc and The Eiffel tower. Neato. We ended up going back to our hotel and crashing until about 9pm. Then it was Eiffel Tower Time. We took a ton of videos there. It was fun. The tower was really cool. I'm glad I got to go up. Right as we made it to the 1st floor, my camera died. It was frustrating. Lauren bargained on of the vendors down for postcards. He wanted 15 Euros for 15 post cards. She got him down to 2 Euros. haha. So we wanted to mail post cards from the Eiffel tower, but they were closed. We were kinda bummed. After we got down, we went and waited in a huge line for Crepes. They were amazing though.







So after that we decided it was time to head home. It was about 12:30 at this point. When we finally made it to the metro, we had to wait 20 minutes for a train. It was the last train of the night. (Oops). So we got on, but at the stop before ours, the train stopped and said it was the final destination. So we had to get off and find our way back. When looking at a map, this creeeepy scary guy came up and tried to kiss Lauren. It was soo scary. So then we just ran! We made it to Rue de Temple, which is where we were supposed to go. Turns out that street actually splits in 5 directions. We were so confused. Then we saw the creepo guy again and ran away. We finally made it home at about 2. We were really happy to be back.

So the next day we were pooped from all the stuff we had done before. So we kind of took it easy. We went to the Arc in the morning. We didnt realize you had to pay to climb up the 200 stairs to get to the top, so we didnt. We just took pictures. It was really beautiful though.



After that we sort of wandered around the shopping areas. Everything was really expensive, but it was kind of fun to just wander without a real agenda. We went back home and I fell asleep because I was so tired. Lauren was like "No, you have to get up!" I got scared of her so I listened. haha. We ended up heading down to the Latin Quarters. It was sooo cute. There were people eating outside everywhere and lots of live bands. We wanted to go to a bakery and get desert, but ended going to an Italian restaurant instead. We ended up paying 24 Euros for two deserts, my water, and Lauren's glass of wine. It was so worth it though. It was seriously the best desert ever. We were so full by the end of it we could barely walk. We were in a much better mood after though. Then it was bed time. (Lauren has pictures of our desert. yumm)

Overall, I enjoyed Paris. I wish I had more time to do things more leisurely and go into musuems. I also wish we had a chance to sit down and eat dinner. We ate a lot of paninis, baguettes, and crepes (which were all wonderful), but it would have been nice to relax a bit more. Paris is kind of dirty. I'm used to the US I think because things in Europe just aren't as clean looking. I don't know. It doesn't matter. I had fun and I really want to go back in the future.

So the next morning, we woke up and headed to the train station. We had to wait a while because we got there too early. But it was okay, we filled our time by eating yummy pastries. When we got on the train, I tried to read but started to feel sick so I just went to bed. The train ride super short. I'm amazed that it takes so little time to go from country to country when traveling from here to London takes an hour and from SF to SD takes like an hour and a half. It's crazy. So our first part of our time in Brussels wasn't so great. We got of the train and our bus towards our hostel. Again, we realized we had no idea about the language. We didn't even know what they spoke. And we had no map. So we walked around for a while and eventually found our hostel. This was at about 11. They told us we couldn't check in until 3, so we dropped off our stuff and began to wander. We went to the metro and took it to some random place. Then we went on a bus. We really had no idea where we were going, we were just trying to find food. It didn't work out so well for us. The place we were trying to find ended up being closed! We were so frustrated. After a while we found this little cafe restaurant. They served these really amazing Pitas. Mine had chicken and you put these sauces over it. It was really amazing. Lauren's was mostly fruit. We met this really cute American couple there who told us what we needed to do. They were really sweet. After lunch we decided it was time to hunt down some chocolate, and we sure found it. We went to so many chocolatiers. It was perfect! Everywhere had samples and they were amazing. I ended up buying chocolate from 3 different places. It was perfect. I also bought a really cute bag that I will eventually show everyone. So as we were walking, we found the Grand Place. This is like the center of Brussels. There were all these cute restaurants and vendors and the buildings were amazing. We got waffle, of course. Mine had strawberries and whipped cream. It wad delicious. After the Grand Place, we went back home. At that point we didn't realize we had been to the Grand Place. We just thought it was somewhere cool. So we unpacked and enjoyed or amazing hostel. After a little 7th Heaven on the TV, we headed out again.. to the Grand Place. We didn't realize we had already been there. We ended up going to a Pizza Hut for dinner. It was the first American food we had in days. It was the nicest pizza hut ever. You had to wait to be seated. It was crazy. haha. We got pizza and it was surprisingly good. Then we made our way back to the Grand Place. Lauren decided she wanted another waffle or desert. This is where the night goes bad. So she decided to get ice cream. I figured I would get another waffle, plain. So the guy takes it hot off the grill (with tongs), puts it in a paper and hands it to me. When he does that, the sugar on the waffle is like carmelized and burns onto my hand. It starts to harden. I swear, it was like the most painful thing I've felt in a really long time. I peeled it off but started to cry because my hand felt like it was on fire. I asked if they had ice because after like 2 minutes it was starting to blister. This nice man took me into his restaurant and gave me some ice in a bag. At this point I just wanted to go home. So as we are walking back to the bus stop, my bag of ice bursts open and falls everywhere. I was really depressed and still in pain. My burns turned into blisters (4 of them) quickly. I iced them for about 2 hours and decided I needed to sleep. It felt a little better in the morning but it was really gross and still painful.

Me in the Grand Place.



Brussels wasn't really that exciting other than the chocolate. I think my whole waffle incident kinda ruined it for me. Maybe I'll give it another shot again. Lauren has most of the pictures from Brussels, so check out her photo albums. I'll link them in the corner.

The airport in Brussels was super lax. I was kind of scared. My liquids were in a bag, but it wasn't even sealed. It was like a plastic bag and they didn't care. Security like barely existed there. Our flight back was fine. I slept again. The train rides after though were kind of miserable. We were so tired and just wanted to get back. We had to change trains 4 times and then walk home. Ughh. When I got home all I wanted to do was sleep, but I had to work on my presentation. I ended up doing most of it in the morning. Oh well. The trip was really fun and made me excited for Ireland. I think this weekend I am going to go into London or something. We'll see. For today I think it's just homework and class at night. The term is almost over and it's kind of scary. I need to make sure I do an awesome job on everything since this class is so good.

Okay, well, I think this is the end. I changed the picture hosting service because this one is better and I can do albums. The link is up there. I have a ton of pictures in there so go look. Lauren has a lot of other pictures of us. She has lots and lots, so go look at them. You can also watch my videos at my youtube account which is linked at the top. I hope you enjoyed this. I better get some comments or emails, because this took forever! Ah!

Done!